


In Character

by bigficenergy



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Friendship/Love, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Magic, Multi, Vampires, Witches, and other creatures and characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigficenergy/pseuds/bigficenergy
Summary: A Schitt's Creek take on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2, Episode 6 "Halloween."When the patrons of Ray's Halloween Emporium all turn into the people and things they've dressed up as, it comes down to David, Stevie, and Patrick to find out what's happened and fix it, even though none of them are quite themselves.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer & Stevie Budd & David Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose, Theodore "Ted" Mullens/Alexis Rose
Comments: 25
Kudos: 74
Collections: Schitt's Creek Trick Or Treat





	In Character

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCTrickOrTreat](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCTrickOrTreat) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Halloween in Schitt's Creek takes a turn for the weird when everyone ends up _turning into_ the costumes they're wearing.
> 
> A Schitt's Creek take on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2, Episode 6 "Halloween."
> 
> Maybe two (or more) characters decide not to dress up and have to join forces to deal with everyone else/save the town. 
> 
> Which characters/relationships you include is up to you! Why this happens is up to you! Is it a spell? A cursed costume shop? Just one of those cute small town quirks that happens in SC every year? You decide!

**_October 8th_ **

“Come on David, where’s your Halloween spirit?”

Patrick asks this while very seriously considering two packaged Halloween costumes that he has picked off a wall at Ray’s Halloween Emporium. The doormat they’d stepped on as they entered the seasonal popup shop had shrieked bloody murder at them, and David still hasn’t fully unclenched.

“I think I flushed it down a toilet at Heidi Klum’s Halloween party in 2011,” he says, kicking a fallen foam sword under a display full of toy weaponry.

“Sounds like you’re due for a good old-fashioned Halloween bash.”

“Oh is it a bash? I thought it was a mash.”

“You’re right, I think the official name is Twyla’s Cafe Tropical Monster Mash. Whatever it is, we’ll stick out like sore thumbs if we don’t have costumes. So, which one do you think?”

Patrick turns the two packages to show David. Apparently, the choices are a vampire or a pirate. _This is the man I’ve gone and fallen in love with,_ David thinks. Whatever his face does in response makes Patrick laugh.

“I’m kidding, I’ve already decided.” He puts the pirate costume back on the wall, sealing David’s fate as boyfriend to Dracula.

“Mm, classic!” David forces out.

“Come on,” Patrick says, heading out of the aisle. “We’re finding you something if it’s the last thing I-”

He’s cut off by someone in a Jason hockey mask jumping out at them from around the corner, a plastic machete raised. Patrick’s reaction is to stop short with a bitten-off expletive. David, unfortunately, runs into him and stumbles back, yelping as he catches himself on a display of monster makeup, fake blood, and latex wounds.

Cackling in delight, the prankster pulls her mask off. Of course, it’s Ronnie.

“Now you’re pale enough to pull off that costume,” she laughs, smacking Patrick on the shoulder as she passes and heads for the register.

“Okay are we done here? Can we go?” David pleads.

“No no no, see, Ronnie, she’s got the Halloween spirit,” Patrick says, but his voice has gone higher, the way it does when he’s distressed and/or annoyed. He catches himself and clears his throat. “And I mean it, we’ve gotta find you something for the party. Ted and Twyla both said they got really decent costumes here. Even Stevie got something here.”

“Stevie got a witch hat, let’s not get carried away.”

“Well, if she can do the bare minimum, so can you.”

“Oh my god, fine!” David looks at the offerings around him and pulls a toy stethoscope off the wall. “I have my own white coat, I’ll be a doctor.”

“That could work.” His mouth quirks in a small smile. “I could be into that.”

David catches his gaze and sees the glint of suggestion there. He rolls his eyes, then turns and heads toward the register so Patrick can’t see him smiling too.

Ray is managing the whole store himself, so he hurries over behind the counter when he sees David and Patrick approaching, straightening his shimmery purple wizard cloak and tall, matching hat.

“Did you boys find everything alright?” he asks cheerily.

“Yes we did, thank you,” Patrick says, saving David from having to say anything. Ray, however, doesn’t take the hint.

“David, I’m glad Patrick could convince you to come here to get a costume. Quite frankly, I didn’t think any of you Roses would be… caught _dead_ here.”

They all laugh - Ray genuinely, Patrick politely, and David uncomfortably.

“Well, don’t count on getting the full set,” David says through a stiff grin.

“Now what makes you say that?”

David and Patrick turn at the sound of the voice to find David’s parents in line behind them. Mr. Rose is holding two packaged costumes, and Mrs. Rose is wearing big black sunglasses, looking even less thrilled about being there than David. David’s mouth drops open in shock.

“ _You’re_ getting costumes here?”

“Yes David, we are,” Mr. Rose says. “You of all people should appreciate that we’ve chosen to patronize a local business.”

“Roland implied that your father was not capable of thematic jocularity,” Mrs. Rose explains with careful annunciation. “Called him a fuddy-duddy. And here we are so that he may prove a point.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll show him fuddy-duddy,” Mr. Rose says, holding up what turns out to be two Groovy ‘70s Hippie costumes.

“Oh my god,” David says, cringing. “Okay, this is all getting a little _too_ scary. Can we go?”

“Well well well,” comes another voice, and now Roland and Jocelyn have joined the queue. Roland claps Johnny on the shoulder. “Took my advice did ya?”

Mr. Rose sighs, “Roland what are you doing here? I thought you already had your costume.”

“Oh, _I_ already have mine,” Jocelyn says. “Yeah, the Ellie Sattler look is popular in our house year round.”

“ _Oh my god_ ,” David says, again.

“Jurassic Park, that’s… neat,” Patrick says, like he’s trying to push past the fact that his childhood has just been ruined a bit. “So who are you going as, Roland? Grant or Malcolm?”

“Even better,” Roland says, revealing the packaged costume he had tucked under his arm. It’s an inflatable t-rex suit.

“Ah,” is all Patrick says.

“Anyway, Patrick,” Ray cuts in, turning to scan the wall of accessories behind him and selecting a set of plastic vampire fangs. “You’ll be needing these to complete the look.”

“Okay, I’m going to go wait in the car,” David says, leaving his stethoscope on the counter and stomping away.

“So I guess I’ll just get yours too then?” Patrick calls after him, but he’s drowned out when David accidentally steps on the shrieking doormat again.

  
  


**_October 31st_ **

“Oohf,” Alexis huffs when she opens the door to exit the bathroom and nearly runs into David, as if she hadn’t heard him there, fussing with his costume in the mirror. “David, you can’t just put on a white jacket and call yourself a doctor.”

David huffs, giving up on flattening the high collar of the jacket. “And I’m sure that hemline was _super_ common in medieval times.”

It’s Alexis’s turn to huff irritably as she smooths out the short skirt of her dusty pink, velvet dress. The bell sleeves slip down to her elbows as she next reaches up to straighten the thin, golden tiara on her head.

“But you can tell I’m a princess,” she insists. “No one’s going to be convinced you’re a doctor.”

“If I’m not a convincing doctor, then how come I can diagnose you with faecal encephalopathy?” David shoots back. He blinks. He’d been reaching for a simpler insult - “shit-for-brains” would have sufficed - but the six-syllable word had rolled right off his tongue. He looks down at the stethoscope around his neck, and finds that it doesn’t look as cheap and plasticky as he remembers, the silver parts shining like real metal. Maybe after all of Patrick’s cajoling, he was finding his Halloween spirit after all.

“Still not convincing,” Alexis says in an annoying, sing-songy voice.

“Well then can you take pity on me and let me catch a ride with you and Ted?”

Alexis whines. “Can’t you just go with mom and dad?”

“Absolutely not! I know that you can smell what they’re doing over there. They’ll be in no condition to drive.”

Alexis can’t deny the fact that their parents have been smoking up in their room. At first, they may have been able to write it off as them getting into character in their garish hippie costumes, but as the evening went on the smell just became obnoxious.

“Then take the car yourself,” Alexis says, adding a pair of earrings to her ensemble. “Or go with Stevie.”

“It’s not even that far to the cafe, you really need private time with Ted that badly?”

“Why do you need a ride at all? You can walk. And if anything happens to you, you can treat yourself. Because you’re a _doctor_. Supposedly.”

David opens his mouth to retort, but an approaching sound stops him. Alexis hears it to, turning toward the door with a furrowed brow.

“Is that… a horse?” David asks.

They open the door and sure enough, a white horse is galloping right toward the motel, with a fully decked-out knight on its back. The knight slows the horse to a stop in front of Alexis, who has stepped outside while David hangs back in the doorway. From his slightly safer distance, David squints at the knight’s armor, which looks… high quality. Authentic, even. It clangs noisily like genuine armor as the knight dismounts, and removes his helmet.

“Ted?!” Alexis says.

“My lady,” he replies, taking Alexis’s hand and kissing the back of it with reverence.

“Um… Ted, this is…”

“Where’d you get the horse, Ted?” David interrupts. Alexis may be charmed - men have certainly done wilder things for her affection - but David isn’t about to shrug and not ask questions.

“I admit, I seem to be a bit… confused,” Ted says. “I did not know where the court stables were, so I borrowed this beauty.” He strokes the horse’s mane with a leather-gloved hand.

“Borrowed,” David repeats.

“The people of the village will understand.”

“So we’re just _really_ going method here, huh?

“Stop David,” Alexis says over her shoulder, then turns back to Ted. “This is kind of working for me.”

Ted smiles for a moment, but then he looks back and forth between the two Roses and shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, I- the way you’re dressed. It’s very strange.”

“He’s supposed to be a doctor,” Alexis says, rolling her eyes. “I told him it didn’t work.”

“I’ve certainly never seen robes like that on any physician,” Ted says. He looks at Alexis. “But also, um… your dress it’s… where’s the rest of it?”

Alexis gasps, offended, and David guffaws with delight.

“No, my love, of course you look lovely, but… will you be alright on the horse?”

As it clicks for Alexis that the horse isn’t just for show, David slips out of the doorway.

“Mkay, well, I’m gonna go hitch a ride with Stevie, you two have fun!”

Smiling to himself as Alexis and Ted’s voices fade behind him, he reaches for the knob of the motel office door, ready to breeze in the way he always does. But this time, the door only opens slightly before it slams back shut.

“What the fuck?” David whispers. Tentatively he tries the doorknob again. It turns, but the door doesn’t budge, like something heavy is pressed against it.

“Stevie!” he calls, knocking on the door. “Stevie, what are you doing, let me-”

When he tries the door again, it gives and he almost falls into the office. He straightens up and the door slams shut behind him. The lights are off, but he can make out the shape of Stevie at her place behind the desk. She appears to be in her witch costume, but something is… different about it. He’d seen the tall, pointed, nylon hat, and the simple matching cape she’d bought at Ray’s. The silhouette of her hat now looks shorter, less structured. The cloak she’s wearing looks heavy, wrapped fully around her small frame. David takes a step and a half toward her, and then he’s stopped by some invisible force.

“How did you… did I miss some memo that we were all supposed to go all out for Halloween this year? How are you doing that? Some kind of wind machine?”

“What are you talking about?” comes Stevie’s voice, even lower than usual.

“This force field trick, your costume upgrade, Ted is outside with a literal horse, and my parents are smoking weed like it’s going out of style along with their clothes. I mean, I’m not saying I would have put more effort in, but I wish I’d known you were all committing so hard.”

“You can’t feel that?” Stevie asks frustrated.

David shakes his head. “What…?”

“ _Magic,_ ” she says, finally looking up so David can see her face. She’s not a smiley person, never has been, but her expression is dark in a way that he doesn’t recognize or understand.

“Magic,” David repeats dubiously.

“A disturbance,” she says. “A shift. Something stronger than I could ever… something has shifted the people in this town. I can’t even trust that I’m who I think I am.”

“Who do you think-”

Suddenly, a piercing roar cuts through the air. Beneath their feet, the ground rumbles once, twice, again, and again, like something huge is taking steps toward them. Stevie’s face remains unreadable, so David turns, running back out the door and toward the source of the sound before he can lose his nerve.

Outside, he looks to his left, where Alexis, Ted, and the horse are still standing. Ted brandishes his sword, and the way it scrapes sharply out of its sheath suggests to David that it’s not made of plastic or foam. He looks out to where Ted is looking, and across the street that runs in front of the motel, he sees some kind of enormous creature approaching. As it gets closer to the lights of the motel, there’s no mistaking it - it’s a dinosaur. A fucking tyrannosaurus rex.

“Stay back!” Ted yells back to Alexis as he steps forward toward _the dinosaur._ A dinosaur that stops long enough to roar before it continues on right toward them. David is frozen. This is absurd, it can’t possibly be real. But if it is, not even a real sword is going to help Ted against _a real fucking dinosaur_.

“DON’T!” a voice shouts from somewhere in the distance, followed by the screeching of tires. Both Ted and the T-Rex turn toward the sound, and a moment later a truck comes tearing down the road, putting itself between the dinosaur and the motel. It’s Roland’s truck, David realizes, and Jocelyn is driving it.

“Rollie, you have to stop!” Jocelyn is saying to the dinosaur while leaning on the truck’s horn and flashing the headlights until it flinches back a step, and David wishes desperately that they could reach some weirdness equilibrium, because he can’t take much more of this.

“You control this beast?” Ted calls to Jocelyn.

“It’s Roland!” she says. “His costume. The dinosaur costume, he put it on and then all of a sudden he just… became this!”

The dinosaur - Roland - roars.

“He means to cause harm and destruction!” Ted says. “It is my duty to protect the land!”

“He’s the mayor, babe, Alexis says. “You can’t slay the mayor. He’s like… I guess he’s like the king in this context.”

“The king?” Ted sheathes his sword. “Then this is sorcery! We must find the source and destroy it at once.”

“Ted, you understand that it’s happened to you too, right? I mean, this is a great look on you, but you’re not an actual old-timey knight.”

“That’s absurd,” Ted laughs. “Perhaps you have been enchanted as well.”

“Okay, guys, we need a plan!” Jocelyn calls, glancing nervously between the motel and dino-Roland, who is getting more and more restless by the moment. “It’s not just Roland and Ted. I passed a gaggle of pint-sized monsters and the parents trying to wrangle them on the way here. We have to do something!”

The office door swings open behind David and Stevie emerges, a broom in hand.

“I’ll draw the beast away to buy some time,” she says. “Is there a safehouse where we can all convene?”

 _Safe_. It hits David all at once. This is all _really happening_ , and Patrick is out there somewhere, hopefully either at the store or at the Cafe. He has to get to him, to make sure he's safe.

“The Cafe,” David says. Stevie waits for more information, because she’s not Stevie, or not fully Stevie. She doesn’t know the Cafe. “It’s not too far from here. Big neon palm tree sign. Can’t miss it.”

Stevie nods and mounts the broom, taking off into the sky. David sways a little, but refuses to pass out.

The simple fact of a woman flying around on a broom somehow doesn’t immediately grab Roland’s attention, so Stevie conjures up what looks like a fireball in the palm of her hand. Like the truck’s headlights, the crackling light of the fire draws the dinosaur’s focus, and Stevie leads him away from the motel. The heavy footsteps recede and Jocelyn sighs with relief, pulling the truck closer to Alexis and Ted. David joins them.

“I need to get to the babysitter to make sure they’re okay,” Jocelyn says. “Luckily, she’s at that age where she thinks participation in basically anything is uncool, so she didn’t have a costume to turn into.”

“Did little Rollie have a costume?” Alexis asks, wide-eyed.

“I just put him in one of his animal onesies. I have a theory about why some of us haven’t turned into who we’re dressed as, which I hope I’m right about. Otherwise, Rollie is now an actual monkey.”

“Oh god,” David breathes.

“Anyway, someone should check on the Cafe since most of us were heading there for the party. Who’s coming?”

“I am,” David says. “Just one second.”

He goes down one door to his parents’ room and knocks. They hadn’t come out during any of the commotion, but he still feels like he should warn them about what’s going on. His dad answers the door in just his underwear, a brown vest with fringe, and a braided headband.

“John, who is it?” he hears his mother call from inside the room, and David does _not_ look past his dad, afraid that she might be in a similar state of partial dress.

“What is it, son?” Johnny asks lazily. “We’re uh… in the middle of um…”

“Oh god, um… there’s some weird shit going on out here,” David says quickly. “Can you just promise me you guys will stay here. Lock the door, don’t leave, don’t let anyone in?”

His dad lets out a weird little laugh and says, suggestively, “Why would we wanna go anywhere but here?”

“Okay great, goodbye!” David says, and Johnny closes the door. “Lock that- lock that door please.” The lock clicks. “Thank you. Okay.”

Alexis is already in the truck with Jocelyn, and David squeezes in next to her. Ted gets back on his horse and says he’ll follow.

“Remember, don’t kill anyone or anything,” Jocelyn says. “They’re all real people, just in cursed costumes or whatever.”

“As you wish,” Ted says. “I gather you are the queen, yes?”

Jocelyn sighs tiredly. “Sure, yeah.”

With that, Jocelyn pulls out of the motel parking lot. It’s only once they’re on the road that David notices that she’s only using one hand to drive, her left hand resting in her lap.

“Jocelyn, are you hurt?” he asks. “Did Roland-”

“I fell trying to get away from him,” she explains, her voice tight. “He wanted to take pictures in the backyard, which was lucky, because if he’d transformed inside the house… anyway I’m pretty sure my shoulder is dislocated.”

“Oh my god, doesn’t that hurt?” Alexis gasps.

“Yes Alexis,” Jocelyn says, teeth clenched in a grimace. “It hurts.”

“It’s too bad David didn’t turn into his costume,” Alexis says. “You wouldn’t know it, but he’s supposed to be a doctor.”

The moment Jocelyn had said her shoulder was dislocated, David had inexplicably been able to run through half a dozen ways to treat the injury, but before he can tell them this, Jocelyn continues.

“It’s only people who got costumes at Ray’s. I’ve seen you in this dress, Alexis, I know it’s one of yours. And obviously I didn’t turn into Laura Dern.” She nods down at her belted khaki shorts and short-sleeved, salmon-pink button-down, tied at the waist. “This is all out of my own closet.”

“Looks great on you, by the way,” Alexis offers.

“Oh thanks. I think it’s safe to say we’ll be retiring the Jurassic Park thing, though, assuming we get out of this ali-

At that moment, Jocelyn has to swerve to avoid colliding with a car full of what looks like undead rockers, judging by the several tattooed, decaying limbs flailing out of the windows. One zombie is riding on top of the car, going to town on his electric guitar. When that zombie spots Ted, he switches his grip, holding the guitar like a baseball bat. Ted draws his sword to defend himself, and David, Alexis, and Jocelyn all wince as they learn what a steel blade sounds like when it collides with a Stratocaster. The car doesn’t stop, so it’s a blessedly quick fight, and Ted is left unscathed.

“I think saw those guys play at the Wobbly Elm once,” Alexis says, looking back and wrinkling her nose. “Not much of a change, to be honest.”

~

Jocelyn pulls the truck up right in front of the Cafe, but David stumbles out and turns toward Rose Apothecary first. The lights are out there, and when he spins back around, he sees the Cafe is completely dark too. His heart sinks. Where could Patrick have gone?

Someone screams in the distance, and David flinches. Alexis puts a hand on his shoulder, which just makes him flinch again.

“Hey,” she says gently. “We’ll find him. Maybe he and all the early birds are hiding out in the Cafe.”

“Okay, yeah, mhm,” David says, nodding with his eyes squeezed shut.

Ted, having finished tying his horse to a nearby bike rack, unsheathes his sword and turns to Alexis.

“Where to, my lady?”

“Let’s check the Cafe first. Jocelyn, if you need to go-”

“I’ll stay until I know you guys are safe here,” Jocelyn says, climbing out of the truck awkwardly, clutching her injured arm.

The group of them approach the door of the Cafe tentatively. Ted tries it, finds it locked, and motions for them all to stand back so he can force it open with the point of his sword.

Inside, the Cafe is dark, empty, and deathly quiet. David hangs back, torn between checking every inch of the restaurant for Patrick, and keeping an eye on the door with its now broken lock.

“Twy?” Alexis calls after a moment. There’s a gasp and a splashing sound from the kitchen.

“Alexis?!”

“Twy!”

Alexis pushes past Ted to run into the kitchen, and the rest of them follow. This results in a pile-up as each of them is met with the sight of Twyla, sitting in the big sink used for washing dishes, which has been filled with water. Instead of her legs hanging out over the edge of the sink, she now has a shimmery, scaly, mermaid tail. Her bikini looks like it’s made from two very real seashells, and she’s clutching a large knife, presumably to defend herself with. She sighs with relief at the sight of them all.

“I know it sounds crazy, but-”

“You turned into your costume,” Alexis says. “Everyone who got their costumes at Ray’s-”

“I saw,” Twyla says. “There were trick-or-treaters down the street… kids and parents… and then my legs just… I didn’t know what to do, so I locked up and dragged myself back here. I needed water. How is this happening?”

“We suspect sorcery,” Ted says.

“He thinks he’s a real knight,” Alexis explains.

“I am a real-”

“Twyla, did you see Patrick?” David cuts in frantically.

“I saw him close up the store, but I don’t know if he left. He hadn’t come here yet when people started changing.”

“Fuck,” David breathes, going back out into the dining area and pacing.

“We need a plan,” he hears Ted say before the chatter fades into the background. He wants to leave, just charge into the store and hope that if Patrick has turned into an actual vampire, he’s more of the _Twilight_ variety and less like something out of _30 Days of Night_. He’s almost ramped himself up to make a break for it when he turns and nearly runs into Jocelyn.

“I have to go,” she says, strained. Her arm seems to only be getting worse. “You should barricade the door behind me.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” he says, even though he has his own mission and can’t offer to accompany her.

“It’s safer for you all to stay here,” she says. “Probably. I mean, who really knows? None of this makes sense. I just need to go get my baby.”

“Okay, well you should at least… here…”

Gently, David takes the wrist of Jocelyn’s injured arm, her left arm, and bending her elbow and placing her palm on his left shoulder. He holds her arm there gently with one hand and begins massaging her bicep with his other hand, the way he inexplicably knows he should, in order to reduce a dislocated shoulder.

“Oh, um… David, do you… know what you’re doing?”

“Unfortunately, I do. This stupid stethoscope is from Ray’s.” He works his way up to her shoulder, continuing to massage until-

“ _Mother f-_ oh.” Jocelyn lets out a relieved sigh and a surprised laugh. “Oh that’s better.”

“We should put that in a sling.”

Twyla is able to point him in the direction of an apron he can fashion a sling out of, but other than that, no one seems to notice or care that David has turned into a medic. Ted and Alexis are too busy arguing about their next move behind the counter.

“I go where you go, my love,” Ted is saying.

“No, Ted. Someone should go with Jocelyn and someone should stay here. And since they don’t have cars where you think you come from, I’ll drive Jocelyn and you’ll hold down the fort here. Pretend it’s your castle or whatever.”

Ted sighs, but smiles fondly. “You are not like other princesses.”

“I know you don’t remember, but I promise you, that’s what you like about me.” She taps him on the nose with her fingertip.

“So I guess I’m going to look for Patrick alone then?” David asks loudly over his shoulder as he finishes tying on Jocelyn’s sling.

“Maybe he’ll be one of those sexy, good-guy vampires?” Alexis offers.

“David!” Twyla calls from the kitchen. “I have something that might help!”

David glares as he passes Alexis and heads back into the kitchen. Twyla directs him to a shelf in a pantry, where he finds her proposed weapon: a little jar of minced garlic. Just one. It’s probably far too hopeful to think that that will be enough to provide any kind of defense, but Twyla has a big fish tail where her legs should be, so David makes himself smile gratefully and pockets the jar.

He exits the Cafe with Alexis and Jocelyn, and watches them pull away in the truck. Behind him, Ted - who had vowed to come after him if he doesn’t return promptly - barricades the Cafe door with a table. David stares down at his store, dark and too still for anything alive to be inside, but he has to hope. He takes a deep breath in through his nose, lets it out through his mouth, and crosses the street to Rose Apothecary.

~

The bell chiming over the door is deafening in the silence of the shop, and David closes and locks the door carefully behind him, trying not to add to the sound. He steps carefully over to the cash wrap, going straight for the light switch. It does nothing, because of course it doesn’t.

The curtain over the entryway to the back room is drawn, and something tells David that if Patrick is here, he’s in the back room. With unsteady hands, he takes his phone out of his pocket and turns on the flashlight before slowly pushing the curtain aside.

Immediately, he sees Patrick lying on the couch, and he almost drops his phone in relief.

“Patrick?” David whispers.

Patrick doesn’t move. David takes a tentative step forward, shining the flashlight higher without putting it directly in Patrick’s face. Patrick appears to be… sleeping. His hands are folded on his stomach and he’s very still. The black cloak tied at his neck spills off the side of the couch. David knows it’s not a good sign that he’s in the costume at all, but he can’t tell in the dark of the stock room whether it’s still made of cheap material, or if it has morphed into something old and Transylvanian. David takes another step closer.

“Patrick?” David tries again, a little louder, but Patrick still doesn’t stir. He’s so entirely motionless that David starts to panic, pocketing his phone and putting the eartips of his stethoscope in his ears. Carefully, he leans over Patrick. The white shirt beneath his cloak is loose, open at the collar and quite bit down his chest, so David pulls it open wider very gingerly, just enough to get the chestpiece where it needs to go.

There’s no heartbeat.

David’s doctor brain knows exactly where it should be, and it’s not there. His own breath leaves him in a shuddering gasp, and he looks wide-eyed at Patrick’s face.

Patrick is looking back at him.

David curses in surprise and scrambles back, but Patrick is off the couch and in his face in an inhumanly fast and fluid motion. David’s back hits a wall and Patrick pins him there with a hand pressed to his clavicle. When Patrick opens his mouth, the sharp fangs he bares are very real, and very much not the bulky plastic ones he’d bought from Ray.

“Patrick it’s me, it’s David!” David says in one frantic breath.

“You are an intruder who has disturbed my sleep,” Patrick says. “Do you know what I could do to you?”

“I have an idea, but you wouldn’t! You wouldn’t hurt me!”

As much as David wants to believe the words he’s saying, he surreptitiously pulls the jar of garlic out of his pocket.

“And why shouldn’t I?”

David thrusts the jar out between them. It’s the motion, not the smell, that makes Patrick take a step back, because for a moment, David can’t get the lid off the jar. He finally gets it open and holds it out closer to Patrick, who does flinch a little at the smell, but then simply knocks the jar out of David’s hand and away from them.

“Fuck,” David mutters, unable to stop himself from thinking, even now, about what a pain that will be to clean up.

“You thought that would overpower me?” Patrick asks, and David almost laughs, because despite the fangs affecting his speech, Patrick still sounds like himself just then, a little baffled as he often is by something David has done.

“I don’t really know what the rules are, they’re different in every movie,” David says. “Patrick, listen to me. Something really weird is going on with the costumes we got at Ray’s. You put on a vampire costume and turned into… an actual vampire, I guess. But it’s not you, not really.”

“No? Then why can I smell the blood coursing through your veins?”

“First of all, ew. Second, you’re only like this because of the costume and a spell or curse or acid in the water supply, _something_ , okay? We are _not_ in Kansas anymore and we need to figure out how to fix this.”

Patrick just looks at him for a long moment, then steps closer again. David tries to back away, but the wall is still behind him. Patrick leans in close, and David has to fight the instinct to put his hands on his shoulders or wrap his arms around him.

“You do smell familiar,” Patrick says.

“I would hope so, since I’m your boyfriend and this cologne is very expensive.”

“We’re lovers?”

“Yes! I mean, I don’t love that term for it, but-”

Patrick slides a hand up David’s chest, resting it over his nervously thumping heart. Then, he reaches up and pulls the collar of David’s coat and shirt aside, examining his neck.

“If you are my companion, then why have I not bonded us for eternity? Made you immortal like me?”

“Because you weren’t immortal until, like, a couple of hours ago.”

“Impossible. I remember nothing of my mortal life.”

That strikes David like… well, like a stake through the heart.

“I promise you were happy. We were happy. We _are_ happy, and we’re gonna fix this.”

Patrick seems to consider this, but then his touch at David’s neck becomes deliberate. A caress. David shivers and Patrick grins, fangs bared again.

“I can fix it right now,” Patrick says, tipping his head to nose along David’s jaw. David pushes at him, but inhuman strength appears to be part of the vampire deal, and Patrick holds him easily against the wall.

“Pa- haaa, hmmm,” he sighs shakily, turned on despite his fear, because Patrick is tracing the tip of his tongue up the side of his neck. “I um… I get the temptation, I _really_ do, but you have to trust m-”

David trails off again as Patrick fits his hands between the small of David’s back and the wall, sliding down lower to grab his ass, pressing their bodies flush together.

“I promise I’ll be gentle,” Patrick whispers in his ear.

“ _Ohhh f-_ ”

Out front there’s a crash, and the shop bell clangs loudly before clattering to the floor. Patrick is gone in the blink of an eye, and David wills his limbs to work so he can follow him back out into the store.

Stevie is in the doorway, which she must have magicked her way through, and she and Patrick are staring each other down. David does the only thing he can think to do, and rushes to put himself between them.

“Was that really necessary?” he asks Stevie, looking at the busted door.

“I went to the Cafe and the knight said you might be in trouble,” she says, looking past him at Patrick, whose fangs are still out. She holds her hand out and a flame ignites in her palm.

“Put that out! Everything is fine!” he says, trying to convince himself as much as them. “We’re all friends here, let’s not do anything supernatural that we can’t take back in the morning.”

“He smells like death,” Stevie hisses.

“And you smell of dark magic,” Patrick shoots back.

“What is with all the smelling?!” David asks, exasperated.

“It’s not me!” Stevie snaps at Patrick, but she does extinguish the fireball, then turns her attention back to David. “But I found the source on my way back. A costume shop, not far from here.”

“Yeah, Ray’s,” David confirms. “We figured out this is only affecting people who got their costumes there. Does that help us fix whatever this is?”

“It might, but we won’t know until we take a look.”

“Okay, okay fuck it, let’s go.”

“You trust this witch?” Patrick asks.

“Didn’t I just say we were all friends?” David says.

“I’d never be friends with a lowly demon,” Stevie says.

“Oh please, I’m pretty sure you actually like him more than me.”

“I don’t know you!” Stevie exclaims. “Either of you. The siren at the Cafe said you were the proprietor of this apothecary, so I trust you wouldn’t burn me for practicing magic, but you can’t expect me to believe this _vampire_ is an ally.”

“Ally isn’t the word I’d choose,” Patrick says, moving to stand behind David and running a hand up one of his arms.

“Okay, okay,” David says, shrugging Patrick off and holding a hand up to keep Stevie from coming to his rescue. He reaches into his pocket and takes out his phone, opening his photo gallery. “Here, look, I can prove it.”

The photo David pulls up had actually been taken by Patrick, and Patrick had teased him for no less that 15 minutes once David finally caved and asked him to send it to him. It’s from a few weeks earlier, a night when the three of them had gone to the Wobbly Elm. They’d all been a little tipsy, David enough so to have thrown one arm around Patrick and one around Stevie, while he swayed happily to the beat of a song he couldn’t quite make out. When Patrick had taken his phone out for a picture, David had scrunched his face up in distaste, but he couldn’t hold the expression once Patrick leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. The result was a photo of David grinning as Patrick kissed him, his arm around Stevie keeping her in the frame too. Her contribution to the photo was a middle finger and a proud smile. It should have ruined an otherwise sweet photo, but they’d all just laughed together about it. David loved that photo, and the two people in it with him.

“That really does look like us,” Stevie says.

Patrick stares for a long moment, then turns and walks a few steps away. David pockets his phone and follows him.

“Patrick…”

“I don’t remember.”

“I know.”

Patrick turns around to face him, his fangs retracted. “I want to.”

“Good. So can we agree to no biting and no magicking at each other while we figure this out?”

Patrick gives a small nod.

“Fine,” Stevie agrees. “We’d better get going before the dinosaur finds its way out of the corn labyrinth I left it in.”

~

The walk to Ray’s shop is not without plenty of ghouls and monsters and confused people dressed for different time periods, but David feels safe flanked by a vampire and a witch. They’re only approached once, by an aggressive soldier with a very large gun. Stevie simply melts the weapon in the soldier’s hands, and they continue on.

When they arrive at the shop, Stevie doesn’t even try the door to see if it’s unlocked, opting to hold out a hand and blast it open with some invisible force. David grumbles as he tries to lock it back up behind them, the deadbolt rattling a little too loosely for his liking.

The shop is dark and quiet, like the Cafe and Apothecary had been. The displays have been picked over, and much of the remaining stock is in disarray on the floor. Before David can call out to see if anyone is there, Patrick strides over to the cash wrap, ducking behind it and hauling Ray out by the collar of his wizard cloak.

“Let me guess, you smelled him?” David says.

“He is the source of this magic, I can feel it,” Patrick says.

“No! No not me,” Ray says, wide eyes fixed on Patrick and his sharp fangs. “Or… I didn’t mean to, at least, it was-”

“The book,” Stevie says.

Squinting in the darkness, David notices for the first time that Ray is clutching some kind of big, old book. Stevie holds out her hand and the book slips from Ray’s grip, shooting across the room into her arms. She doesn’t even open it, just runs a hand over the worn brown cover, its gold-tipped corners and the ominous symbol stamped on its center, then draws back like it’s burned her.

“Where did you get this?” she demands.

“At an estate sale,” Ray says. “I just thought it would be a nice prop to go with my costume.”

“But you read from it.”

“I was just getting into character! The trick-or-treating buddy program was kicking off here, and I told the the kids I was going to cast a spell to ensure a bountiful night of candy. I opened to a random page, read what was there so it would sound authentic, and then… it was chaos!”

“And you just hid here?” Patrick asks, tightening his grip on Ray’s cloak.

“Once everyone had cleared out, I locked the door and have been trying to use Google translate for hours to try to find something in the book to reverse this.”

“But you’re dressed as a wizard,” David says. “You didn’t turn into a wizard? Stevie is an actual witch with actual powers.”

“I didn’t buy my costume here,” Ray confesses. “Admittedly, the prices are a bit high, and I already had the hat and cloak…”

“Okay,” David says wearily, scrubbing his face with his hands. “Patrick, let him go, it’s not his fault.”

“You trust him?” Patrick asks.

“Yeah, and you should too. You live with him.”

Patrick looks at Ray. “Are we also lovers?”

“ _No,_ ” David says.

“You’re a great guy, Patrick,” Ray says. “But you’re not really my type.”

Patrick glares, but lets him go.

“Do you remember what spell you read?” Stevie asks.

“I do,” Ray says, going over to her and David. Stevie hands him back the book. “Because no matter where I open it…”

Ray opens the book toward the beginning, and several more pages flip of their own volition, revealing a page a little over halfway in. Stevie takes the book back and tries to flip it to another page, but the pages whip back to keep her on the same spell.

“It has a mind of its own,” David says.

“Not quite,” Stevie says. “It’s the will of a witch that was bound to this book. I can hear her calling out.”

“What does she want?”

“Revenge. Chaos. It’s difficult to blame her. How would you feel if you were trapped in a book?”

“I feel like I’m trapped in some fantasy fiction monstrosity right now, so I get it.”

Without another word, Stevie takes the book over to the cash wrap and sets it down on the counter. She begins to flip through the rest of the pages as best she can while still keeping the book mostly open to the original spell, so that it won’t snap shut again. After a moment, she places her hands on the counter with a sigh, and David goes over to join her.

“Anything?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “No reversal in the text. But I think I can come up with my own, based on the original spell.”

The whole book snaps shut. David jumps, but Stevie seems to have expected the reaction.

“You can do that?” he asks shakily.

She glares at him. “I may not have the level of magic contained in this book, and I don’t know who I supposedly was to you before tonight, but I assure you, I _am_ a capable witch!”

“I know,” David says softly. “I’m sorry, I’m just scared. I know you’re capable, I’ve seen what you’re able to do. The you I’m more familiar with is also smart and capable and a good friend. I know this is all confusing for you too, but I believe in you. You can fix this.”

Stevie’s expression goes softer than its been all night, and she turns back to the book.

“There’s something we need to do before I try to reverse this,” she says. “There’s a binding spell for the book, a precaution for an event like this. If the reversal works, I won’t have any power, and we may not be able to get the book open again. We need to preserve the spell. This book would be dangerous if it fell into someone else’s hands.”

“Can you hold the book open to the binding spell for a few seconds?” David asks.

“Maybe… with the vampire’s help.”

Patrick doesn’t wait to be asked, and stands next to Stevie. David takes out his phone.

“Ready when you are,” David says, opening the phone’s camera.

Stevie cracks the book open slightly, just enough to find the correct page, then encourages Patrick to take the front half of the pages while she takes the back.

“On the count of three,” she says. “One. Two. Three!”

She and Patrick wrench the book open and David snaps a photo.

“Got it,” he says, and they let go of the book, which snaps shut immediately.

“Right,” Stevie says, turning to David. “Now, unless you’re a physician with heightened strength, you and the shopkeeper might want to take cover for this next part.”

“Will you be okay?” David asks, looking nervously between two of the most important people in his life.

“Yes,” she says, and David can tell she’s not entirely sure, but is saying what he needs to hear. 

Suddenly, there’s a loud banging at the front door. It’s brief, and they all freeze for a moment, waiting to see if they’re in the clear. Instead, the pounding is replaced with the sound of something hacking at the door instead, and they watch in horror as the wood splinters around a large blade. A machete blade. David flashes back to the day he and Patrick bought their costumes.

“I think Ronnie wants a refund,” he says.

“Go!” Stevie says to him. “We have to do this now!”

There’s a second counter in front of the makeshift fitting rooms, which David and Ray crouch behind. David watches from there as Stevie opens the book again, letting it fall naturally to the original spell. She and Patrick each hold down one side of the book, and she begins to incant in what David assumes is Latin. It’s difficult to see what’s happening, but Patrick suddenly leans in further over the book, which must be putting up a fight. Around them, the building starts to rumble, shaking the merchandise displays and knocking pegs off the walls. A light begins to glow above the book, and David doesn’t need to be able to sense magic the way Stevie can to know it was time to brace for impact. He ducks down, joining Ray in sitting with his back to the counter, just in time to feel a powerful gust of wind burst through the store. For a moment, everything glows with a muted blue light, and then it fades away, leaving them in darkness and silence. There’s no more banging at the door, no sound that David can hear other than his and Ray’s anxious breathing. He waits one more beat, then turns to peak back over the counter.

The book sits closed next to the register, and when David rises slowly to his feet, he sees Patrick and Stevie both lying on the floor.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he gasps, tripping over himself to run out to them. He falls to his knees next to Patrick first, turning him onto his back and cradling the back of his head.

“Patrick?” David says, shaking him a little. Patrick doesn’t open his eyes, so David gets the eartips of the stethoscope into his ears with his free hand, and shoves the chestpiece into the opening of his shirt.

Still no heartbeat.

David’s eyes fill with tears as he keeps listening, willing the sound of Patrick’s heart to reach his ears. Instead, he hears Patrick groan, and feels him shift. David lets go of the stethoscope and cradles Patrick’s face.

“Patrick? Are you okay? Are you still undead?”

“Iss pa-stik,” Patrick mumbles.

“What?”

Patrick’s hand goes to his own mouth, and to David’s immense relief, he pulls a set of very fake vampire teeth out of his mouth and tosses them away. Then, he taps on David’s stethoscope.

“It’s plastic,” he repeats, taking David’s hand and pressing it to his chest so he can feel the beat of his heart. “Costumes aren’t real anymore. It worked.”

“Oh thank god,” David breathes, leaning down to kiss him.

“Don’t mind me, I’m fine,” Stevie grumbles next to them, sitting up and shoving away her fallen witch hat. David gives Patrick one more kiss, makes sure he can sit up, then goes over to help Stevie to her feet, wrapping her up in a big hug.

“You did it! Oh my god, you did it!”

“You could sound a little less surprised,” Stevie says, strained in his crushing hold, but hugging him back. “Thought you said you believed in me.”

David pulls back. “Wait… do you guys remember everything?”

“Oh yeah,” Patrick says, getting to his feet, untying his cloak, and tossing it away. “ _Everything._ Ray, you good?”

Ray emerges from his hiding spot, leaning on the fitting room counter and shaking his head.

“I knew I should have run a pumpkin patch this year,” he says.

Just as it begins to feel like the tension of the night has dissipated, the shop door swings open, and the four of them scream at the hockey-masked, machete wielding figure in the doorway. But it’s only Ronnie, who pushes her mask up off her face and drops her now-plastic machete, hands up in surrender.

“Anyone wanna tell me what the fuck just happened?” she asks.

~

After several phone calls to check in with friends and family, a trip to the nearby corn maze to fetch a de-dinosaured Roland, and a final stop at the motel to put the spell book in the safe in the office, most people who would have been at the Cafe Tropical party still end up at the Cafe to close out the night. No one is really in the Halloween spirit anymore, so the lights are all on, and pretty much everyone has shed their costumes, but it seems that no one is ready to be alone after such a strange, shared experience. David is definitely grateful for the company, and also for the snacks. He and Patrick cozy up on one side of a booth with a couple of plates loaded up with finger foods, and Stevie sits cross-legged across from them with a paper cup of wine, looking at the photo of the binding spell on David’s phone, and typing words into a translator on her phone.

“Do you actually need to know what you’re saying?” David asks.

“Probably not,” Stevie says, picking up David’s phone to show them the photo. “But it looks like we need some kind of chest to lock the book in, and I’m assuming it can’t just be any chest.”

“Did you figure out what kind?” Patrick says through a mouthful of stuffed mushroom.

“Ashwood,” Stevie says, setting the phone back down. “Any chance you have a vendor who makes things out of ashwood?”

“We can look into it,” David says. He reaches for a pig-in-a-blanket, and finds that there aren’t any left.

“Sorry,” Patrick says, taking a swig of his beer to wash down his food.

“I’m just glad you’re not craving blood anymore,” David says, kissing his temple.

The Cafe door opens and in walks a tall, fit cowboy, wearing leather chaps over jeans, and a vest over nothing. David would feel a little bad for staring if he couldn’t feel Patrick staring right along with him.

“What are you- _oh,_ ” Stevie says, turning around to see what they’re looking at.

The cowboy looks up, tipping back the brim of his hat. It’s Jake, who spots the three of them and heads over.

“Hey guys,” he says. “Weird vibe. Did I miss the party?”

“Sounds like you missed a lot more than the party,” Stevie says.

“What do you mean?”

“Seriously?” David asks. “People turning into their costumes? Confusion and mayhem?”

“Roland was a dinosaur,” Stevie adds.

“Wow. Sounds intense,” Jake says with surprising evenness.

“I’m guessing you didn’t get your costume at Ray’s?” Patrick says. “It was only people who got costumes from Ray’s shop.”

“Oh no, this is all just stuff I already had,” Jake says. Between the leather chaps and the lasso of red cotton bondage rope attached to his belt, David would say that definitely checks out.

“But still, how did you miss other people turning into monsters and things?” Stevie asks.

“I was in my workshop all evening, lost track of time,” Jake explains. “I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes projects will come to me in a dream and I just get lost in it until it’s finished.”

David, Patrick, and Stevie exchange looks.

“Jake,” Stevie says. “Would you be able to make an ashwood chest?”

Jake looks more surprised by that question than by the revelation that people had been turning into their costumes that night.

“That’s the project I just finished,” he says. “You want it?”

“I would say we need it, actually,” Stevie says. “How much would something like that set someone back?”

“I’m sure I could work out a discount for some friends,” he says, patting Stevie on the shoulder and winking at David. “I’ll bring it by the motel tomorrow and we can figure it out.”

“Sounds great,” Stevie says, and David thinks she’s blushing a little.

“Well, I’m glad you guys are all good,” Jake says. “Sounds like it’s been a night. I’m gonna get some punch, but I’ll catch you later.”

“Nice to see you again,” Patrick says, to which Jake nods politely.

“Amazing how Jake having prophetic woodworking dreams is _not_ the strangest thing that’s happened tonight,” Stevie says, once he’s out of earshot.

“Stevie, you’re not going to… sleep with him for the chest are you?” Patrick asks.

“Of course not!” Stevie says. “I’m gonna sleep with him because he’s Jake and we still do that sometimes. If that inspires him to deepen the discount, that’s up to him.”

“Okay, I’m proposing a toast,” David says, waving away the current conversation and picking up his cup of wine. “To next Halloween. When we will stay in and watch classic Halloween movies, eat candy, and not wear costumes that might end up cursed. Agreed?”

“It’s a little early for me to commit to that,” Stevie says. “I might not even be friends with you guys in a year.”

“I’m pretty sure this is the kind of experience that bonds you with people for life,” Patrick says.

“It did get pretty dark there for a minute.”

“I was gonna fight you.”

“You were gonna lose.”

David smiles, listening to his boyfriend and best friend tease each other. He knows Alexis is at a table behind them, chatting with Ted and Twyla, and that his parents are passed out together at the motel. He’d just lived through the strangest night of his life, which was already not an easy list to top, and came out relatively unscathed. Everyone is safe, and he’s happy.

Eventually, Patrick and Stevie catch the sentimental look in David’s eye, and stop bantering long enough to raise their drinks to the promise of a much quieter and normal Halloween next year.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 🎃🧛♀️👻🍭🦇
> 
> I really wasn't planning on taking on something like this, but when I peeked in to see what prompts were available and saw this one hadn't been claimed, I had to have it. I love Buffy, I love season two, and I love the season two Halloween episode. This is very silly and I had a lot of fun with it. I hope you did too!


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